Tag Archives: Public space

Theorizing the ‘sociology of public space’.

December 15, 2009 – 10:17 am

The ‘sociology of public space’ is a research area still rather unknown and unexplored. Until recently, most social sciences conventional wisdom was that the public realm was inhabited and asocial (Simmel, 1903, Wirth, 1938). Their essential argument was always that public spaces of the city were densely filled with visual and sounds stimulus overload and [...]

By Patricia Simoes-Aelbrecht | Posted in Books, Public space | Also tagged , | Comments (2)

Jaffa Peace House

November 20, 2009 – 2:52 pm

The idea of the Peace House was originally launched by the late Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. Named after the latter, it’s part of the seafront redevelopment of the mixed city of Jaffa and was designed by Massimiliano Fuksas as a dramatic spacial progression of pale green concrete slabs interspersed by glass panes, which offer [...]

By Gabriele Oropallo | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Suggested Reading: Lefebvre

July 29, 2009 – 1:58 pm

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. by Donald Nicholson-Smith with an afterword by David Harvey (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
I’ve been working on Lefebvre’s theorisation of space off and on for about 8 years now, and in that time quite a bit has changed in terms of how The Production of Spaceis understood, or engaged with, in the [...]

By Nick Beech | Posted in Books | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Reading the urban public spaces of China

July 8, 2009 – 3:50 pm

 

The last two decades debates on the future of public life and public spaces have been markedly western-oriented, negativist and raising often questions: does public space still matters for our public life?
To counter these views, I would like to offer a different and non-western perspective for the discussion. Here, I will talk about the case [...]

By Patricia Simoes-Aelbrecht | Posted in Public space | Also tagged , , , | Comments Off

A Revaluation of Public Space in Toronto (1955-2005)

July 5, 2009 – 2:08 pm

Paper presented at the 2009 Anglo-American Conference of Historians “Cities” in London.
You can download the full paper with images here.
INTRODUCTION
What we will look at in the next twenty minutes is a study of three iconic projects in Toronto that were all planned and built between the years 1955 and 2005: City Hall and Nathan Phillips [...]

By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff | Posted in Conferences, Public space | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)